


à corps perdu

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-28
Updated: 2013-03-28
Packaged: 2017-12-06 17:57:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/738488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel's struggles in 8x17.</p>
            </blockquote>





	à corps perdu

“Now, Castiel. Kill him.”

In the scope of an existence that can't be measured in years, one man's life is but the blink of an eye— a vanishing mist on a cold day, a wave breaking against the shore. It should stay beautiful and transient just like that, but Dean Winchester never follows the rules. Dean is a tsunami, and all of the preparation in the world can't brace Castiel against its impact; it crashes, and he's permanently changed, every time. There's something beautiful, too, about that kind of terrifying, destructive force. He's never seen anything quite like it, not even (especially not) in Heaven.

“I won't,” Castiel refuses, even as he knows that Naomi is conjuring nothing but fabrications. There is no soul in the world that he knows more intimately. They both know this.

Still, she takes him in her hands and scrubs him raw, smoothing away all of his perceived imperfections with a critical hand. She refurbishes the state of his Grace, pushing at the stubborn dents and dings from his experiences on Earth, and yet they persist. Castiel curls himself around them and protects them, those painful flaws, because humanity as a whole is flawed. It makes them what they are— makes Castiel what he is, whatever he is, some abomination or otherwise.

It's nothing at all like the last time Castiel was corrected; Naomi is much more efficient, gutting out anything she deems useless, discarding his individuality like she would something rancid and soiled.

“Cas, what's going on?” Dean asks, and Castiel is afraid, so afraid, of looking at him and feeling nothing but the hollow space that Naomi is scooping out of him. He's afraid of looking at Dean and feeling nothing at all, and so he avoids his gaze, and steps back.

“No, I won't,” he repeats, but he's afraid he will, the same way Samandriel's Grace had flickered and died in his arms, and it makes his resolve falter.

Dean steps forward when he steps back. “Cas, look at me.” Because Dean hates it when Castiel won't look him in the eyes, has never been shy about holding his gaze. “Cas!” It's the Green Room again, Dean ducking forward until their eyes are forced to meet, only moving back when he's sure he's caught it, that Castiel will follow him back up.

Castiel breathes in deep. He doesn't need to, but he does.

“He's only one man, Castiel,” Naomi intones, expanding upon his earlier thought, grappling at Castiel's mind and using his own approximation of Dean against him. “But he's dangerous, and if he threatens the safety of Heaven, your _brothers_ , I need to know you're ready. _This_ is how you will repent.”

“I won't,” he continues his mantra, but Dean is still frowning at him, deaf to Naomi's words. He takes another step closer, and Castiel panics— so fiercely that it blackens the edges of his vision, makes him lose control— and he lashes out, not entirely of his own accord. There's a resounding _crack_ where his fist meets Dean's jaw, and he immediately feels sick with guilt.

“Son of a _bitch—_ ”

 

.

 

_Don't touch me, you son of a bitch!_ is the first thing the Righteous Man says to him in Hell. There were other things, before that— fearful things, screams, not spoken to him directly. His soul cries, _Sam_ , and _help me_ , even without his consent. He fists hands in his hair, and smears himself with the blood of his victims. He should be hideous and grotesque, but he isn't. Even after a period of time spent in sin that would have damned any other soul, transformed it into a demon, Dean Winchester's somehow retains its shape.

 

_Please, please,_

_Help me,_

 

It's no different from the cries of any other lost soul in the Pit, and yet Castiel hears it above any other, something that resonates— He doesn't want to analyze why, but still he follows it. He's the first to discover its source, as if he's the only angel that hears it, like a funneling from God— fate, destiny, prophecy.

But Dean is confused and afraid, and Dean fights him, tooth and nail. He spits fury and fire, and shields himself from Castiel's light. Castiel grips him tight, tighter, trying to cease his struggles, but it only sears a mark into his skin.

 

_No, no,_

_Not me, I don't deserve,_

_Help, help me,_

_Please, I need,_

 

.

 

“Dean,” Castiel rasps and reaches for the broken body on the floor, feeling an alarming disconnect— not understanding how most of the blows had landed, how it had come this far. “Dean,” he repeats, and cups Dean's face in his hands, Dean too bloodied and disorientated to pull away.

“I get it, Cas,” Dean mumbles around the blood in his mouth, “You let go. You really want out? Just do it.”

Castiel shakes his head, his throat so tight he can barely respond. “No. Dean, no—”

“Don't you get it?! We're _done_ , Cas!” he shouts, and some of the blood hits Castiel's cheek. “Just fucking _do it_ , you _goddamned coward_ —”

Castiel snaps his neck.

The silence that follows is unlike anything Castiel has ever experienced, even more oppressive and isolated than tuning out the Heavenly Host. He feels he could suffocate in it, and suddenly wishes that were possible. His hands, trembling, can't seem to leave Dean's body, still lingering on the contours of his face— skin he's replaced and mended and _created_. Even had Sam burned his body proper, Castiel could have gathered every mote of his dust from the wind, picked him out from grains of sand on the beach.

“It's not him,” he says it aloud to reassure himself, but his voice is hoarse and unsteady. “Why are you doing this?”

Naomi doesn't move. “Again, Castiel.”

For a brief moment, anger overtakes grief, and Castiel stands, brandishing his sword and aiming straight for the throat. But Naomi doesn't even flinch, and Castiel finds he can't do it; it's as if he's hit an invisible wall, his own body betraying him, and she remains just out of the reach of his blade.

“What the _hell_?!” Dean's voice echoes as he surveys his own corpse on the floor, looking around for someone to question, to blame. “Cas?!”

Castiel bites down on a sob— relieved, miserable, broken— and turns around to face him.

 

.

 

Forty years of tireless searching.

_Dean Winchester is saved_ , Castiel shouts as he breaks the surface, pinions scorched by hellfire, kicking up ash and sulfur, and the cry is so great that it ripples across the entire Host. The soul he cradles quakes violently like a drowning man finally coming up for air. He will be Castiel's best work, a restoration of his Father's art. He will be the most important achievement in all of Castiel's long existence.

Right now, Dean Winchester is a sobbing mess in his hold, clinging desperately to the unfamiliar being that pulled him out. Castiel's Grace pulses like a heartbeat in tandem to the one growing in Dean's body, and it cleanses away a bit of the blood each time, soothes four decades of trauma like a balm. The scars will remain, of course— not the ones on the body, but the ones deeper than that— but that is a burden that Castiel isn't fit to tamper with.

_Castiel?_ Dean's soul pulses back when he catches on to a strand of consciousness, and even though Dean likely won't remember him when he lives again, Castiel still swells with satisfaction at the sound of his name. It surges through him with such an electric intensity that his wings snap open again, tendrils of light that slash at the sky and blister through the treetops, stripping them bare.

_Be not afraid,_ he encourages when Dean is reluctant to let go, _I found you, and so here I'll be when you wake._

_I found you,_ a sonic boom rips the trees from the ground.

_I found you,_ a man resurrected takes his first breath.

_Hello, Dean,_ his voice shatters the windows and Dean clutches his ears.

In the following days, Dean sleeps fitfully and dreams of Hell, of his own screams, of the screams of the souls he ripped apart. He dreams of flinching away from a bright light, trying to claw his way back to darkness, to sink into it and disappear. He dreams of something sinking into him instead, right down to his bones, pulling life out of him and carefully knitting it around his framework— building him up and smoothing him out with the touch of a perfectionist.

_I found you, and so here I'll be when you wake._

“What were you dreaming about?”

 

.

 

_I'm not here to perch on your shoulder,_ he'd said, and yet here he still is, the Winchesters' guardian, right up until he was the one they needed protecting from. And when they'd called for him, he'd responded even to that, protecting them from himself when he finally found the mind to do it.

Maybe it's the simplicity of it that appeals to him, standing vigil over the soul he'd pulled from Hell the same way he'd stayed and watched Dean claw his way to the surface from his grave. Sleep is one of the only times Dean is truly vulnerable.

Castiel has been told enough times that he knows it's inappropriate, but when Dean sleeps, his guard is finally down completely. Castiel can see his soul in all of its colors, read his feelings like a map, and he drinks it in greedily— It's a desire he's never fully understood, to want to see this man open to him again, bare as the day Castiel had first gripped him in Hell. If Castiel looks hard enough, he usually thinks he can peel past Dean's posturing to the heart of the matter, but he's disappointed to admit that he isn't always successful. Nevertheless, it's a good heart, one that loves with a terrifying ferocity, one that inspired Castiel to choice. He yearns to have faith in that heart, but they've broken one anothers' faith time and again, and they will break each other down trying, because neither is infallible. Faith is for God, but Castiel can't even remember what that feels like anymore, to have faith.

Still, he yearns. He can't place exactly what he's yearning for, but it's beginning to feel like a part of who he is, that he's always been and always will be this way.

_Personal space, Cas,_ Dean admonishes, but still Castiel lingers close to feel the heat off his skin, to catch the waves that pulse off his soul because it makes his Grace thrum with familiarity. Because, since being outcast from Heaven, it's the one thing that gives him a sense of belonging— that he's been missing something since he first encouraged Dean's soul to let go, that he can't return Dean's embrace because he knows he won't be able to let go himself.

Naomi's creations can't replicate that. Every time Castiel nears one, he feels cold. Even approaching one he'd knocked unconscious to the ground, he can't see anything of the man he'd saved, can't see down to the scars he'd never healed.

Dean comes to, and immediately begins to scramble away, trying to get to his feet. “Cas, wait!”

“I found you,” he says, but there's no inflection to it now— not pride, not affection. He looks at Dean, and he feels nothing.

“Cas, no.... You don't wanna do this!” Dean throws out his arms in a feeble attempt to defend himself. “You can still stop!” _We can still fix this!_

_It's not broken._

Castiel kicks him and sends him sprawling, presses his heel to Dean's throat.

“Please,” Dean chokes, grabbing his ankle. _Please, help, I need,_

Castiel hesitates.

Of all the lights in the world, how can he extinguish this one? Castiel is the glue that put him together, and Dean is the natural disaster that broke him apart. It's true that, since then, he's been lost— They've both been lost, wandering and searching for clarity. It comes sometimes, in bits and pieces, while they circle around each other, this crooked dance they've been moving to for years. Without that, isn't he truly alone?

After everything, shouldn't he be truly alone?

“Ha,” Dean huffs triumph from his place on the floor, watching Castiel come back to himself. “I found you.”

A man tears his way through Purgatory, finally stopping at a riverbank, and he smiles. _I found you._

Castiel moans, pressing his face into his hands, dragging fingers down his skin. He knows he's losing sight of reality, a scenario repeated so many times he's dizzy with it, and still he subconsciously searches for that familiar pulse— hopes he never finds it again. He wants to split into pieces, become dust on the wind, and have no one to glue him together again.

Something always does.

“This won't do, Castiel.”

Castiel's hands fall away, and he meets the eyes of the man on the floor, his friend. “I'm sorry, Dean.” He's never really found a way to redeem himself like he promised he would. He's only sloppily tried to clean up his own messes, and maybe he's made the wrong promises to the wrong people. He's tried so hard to do right. He chose his own right, and it still turned out terribly wrong. “Please...” _Forgive me, help me, I need,_

“Cas,” Dean coughs, but it's all he can manage anymore.

Naomi is stern. “Finish it.”

This isn't his choice. _This isn't me, Dean._

He finishes it. He watches Dean die, watches himself betray a man he never wanted to hurt again, but _has_ , so many times. He's never blamed Dean for anything, not really. How can he? Dean is so very, very young, even with forty years in Hell under his belt. Castiel is the one who should know better; he is the one who's been there to watch history repeat itself since the beginning of time.

“I should've known you were hiding things,” Dean spits venom from his left. “I wanted to trust you, Cas, I did, but you can't trust me!”

“I'm just a man, is that it?” Dean accuses from his right. “You're the one letting this bitch _control_ you! _Fight it!_ ”

“I didn't fail you!” Dean growls from behind him. “I tried so damn hard for both of us, and _you_ let go! _You_ failed!”

Naomi smooths the wrinkles from her suit jacket, and looks up. “Now. Once again.”

 

.

 

_Hey, Cas, you listening?_

_What the hell happened back there?_

_I know you can hear me! Don't be a dick about this!_

_Hey, Cas,_

_I need you to tell me what's going on._

_Look, I—_

_Damn it, man, this isn't funny!_

_Why couldn't you have just answered me before?_

_Why can't you just answer me now?!_

_Listen, I'm asking you to—_

_I can help, okay? I can._

_Just give me a chance._

_Cas—_

_Cas?_

_I need you to hear me._

_Where the hell are you, man...?_

 

.

 

Once, long ago, Castiel had watched a choir of angels be damned for love.

They weren't those that had fallen for love of Lucifer, but those that had fallen for love of man. They were unclean, had lost sight of their purpose, and had birthed creatures even more terrifying than cambions. These were vicious giants that fed on the flesh of men, and their appetite was insatiable— Castiel knows because he had been there, had speared them with his sword as his weeping brothers were forced to look on. _This is the product of a fallen angel,_ Michael had warned them, and the Host had cried out as two hundred angels were cast down into their own personal prison beneath the earth.

Long ago, Castiel had perched on the bow of a boat, watching a flood colored red with the blood of his daughters and sons finally clear.

_How fearsome is the passion of a fallen angel, Castiel,_ Noah had lamented at his side, but with incrimination in his words, _that, for it, I would lose everything._

_May the water wash away this sin forever and ever._

Thousands of years later, Castiel stands on a dock conjured by the mind of a Righteous Man, and watches the waves. He holds a symbol of his disobedience between his thumb and forefinger, and wonders what that water would look like filled with corpses. He finds that it doesn't still his hand.

 

.

 

“You're ready.”

 

.

 

It's the eleventh hour. He's done this a thousand times, and today is the last.

“You're gonna have to kill me, first.”

Castiel is living a dual existence. It's the impossibility of having night and day exist in the same place at the same time— he looks at Dean and sees both a corpse and an angry man, feels both everything and nothing. He sees a shared history of a scant few years that eclipses his entire life, but he also sees a stranger.

No, even a thousand imitations couldn't make Castiel doubt that this is real. He's so tired of fighting it, but he will— He will, because Dean is calling out for him, and Castiel doesn't always come when he calls, but he always wants to. He wants to make up for all those times he's stayed away, all those times he's tried to block out those prayers, the only company he's had in his self-induced isolation. He's seen Dean die a thousand times at his hand, seen their bond run red across the floor, and he can't do it, anymore, he can't. He won't.

Dean is kneeling at his feet, swaying unsteadily, but he doesn't look away; he's never been shy about that. Castiel looks down at him there, and still sees double— He can't blink anything into focus, has no control over his body to try.

_Just do it!_ Dean pleads from the bottom of a dirty back alley, and Castiel feels all his fight leave him instantaneously, feels his hands go slack.

“Come on, you coward, do it!” he goads from the bottom of an old crypt, and Castiel hits him again and again, blood slick on his fingers.

He'll die unless Castiel stops, but Castiel is helpless to do anything but watch himself finish it— _I won't, I won't_ — _Please, please_ — and Naomi looks down on him coldly.

“I fixed you, Castiel. _I_ fixed you!” She erases everything and mints him into something flawless.

Something in the air changes then, something about Dean's expression, and Castiel recognizes it almost immediately— sees all of that posturing he's constantly trying to peel away collapse all at once. Castiel has cracked it open with his fist this time, and that's never the way he wanted it.

“This isn't you, Cas. This isn't you,” Dean says, reaching out, and that's faith. It will break him down, but still he offers it, trusts him. _You look out for my little brother, okay?_

Castiel hits him again. He thinks he feels his own heart crack open, and if Dean dies, then neither will it survive.

“... Cas, it's _me_.”

_It's not me,_ he chokes from a hospital bed, tears streaming down his face, and Castiel stays.

_It's you,_ in the damp scent of rotting autumn leaves, dirtying Dean's hands as he gathers them, and Castiel turns away.

_It's you,_ in Dean's fingers tangled in his coat, and Castiel is pulled, stumbling, through Purgatory.

_It's me,_ and Castiel lets go of his hand.

 

.

 

He's done this a thousand times, and today is the last.

Castiel has lived a life that can't be measured in years, and he's killed so many that one more should be nothing to him. He's seen friends die, he's seen family die, he's seen entire populations annihilated, he's seen stars go supernova and then disappear into nothing.

He thought nothing could change him.

But, _we're done_ , Dean says, and the secrets of Heaven spill from Castiel's lips, words that he's forced to chew and swallow like burning lava down his throat.

_We're done_ , Dean says, and Castiel's Grace trembles and cracks, new resolve flooding the gaps and seeping out of him like blood on the wall.

_We're done_ , Dean says, and Castiel stabs him in the heart and watches his eyes lose focus.

 

“We're family.”

 

Castiel finally feels his limbs lock in place, finally _stops_. He hears in it, _we'll never be done_ — hears himself, _I have no family_ , like a stranger speaking words from his mouth— hears forgiveness, _I'd rather have you_.

_I need you_ , a disheveled and warm embrace.

“I need you,” and his blade clatters to the ground.

 

.

 

_Castiel._

He is named, and so he is. He collapses into existence like a brand new star, the songs of the Host the first thing he knows. He automatically rises to join the chorus without questioning it, isn't made knowing to question anything, his first instinct to let his voice become lost in the deafening sound of many. He knows he is not one, but part of one— He knows his Father, he knows his brothers, and he knows his purpose. He knows to serve. He knows that he is a soldier. He knows that he is righteous. He does not doubt.

… He should not doubt.

God creates man, and from the first moment they open their eyes, they are made to question everything.

“Cas.”

He is named, and so he becomes.

It's the first time they've stopped since being reunited in Purgatory, and it's still strange to hear his name in a way that isn't just an echo of something far off. His gaze snaps to Dean instinctively, and Dean smiles as if that's some sort of novelty. There's something different about him here, untethered and carnal, like a beast that's broken free of its chains. He tears them a clear path without holding back and without hiding, and he drags Castiel along with him possessively, close. If the passion of a fallen angel is fearsome, then Dean Winchester's is ten times more so.

Castiel is sitting on the ground, and Dean drops down so close that their sides brush— closer than he would normally. This Dean is different, and Castiel feels greedy for it. It's a possessiveness equal to Dean's, maybe even stronger than; it's the same electrical surge that tore through him the moment Dean's soul first learned his name. His wings shift and readjust through planes to accommodate for his space, one brushing along and threading through Dean's back, dipping into his bones, even if he can't feel it there.

“You know the first thing I want when we get back?” he asks, and it's almost conversational. “ _Pie._ And maybe a cheeseburger. Like _ten_ cheeseburgers.”

Just like this, he doesn't acknowledge the possibility that only one of them is leaving. It's always _we_ or _you and I_ , despite every one of Castiel's attempts to discourage him. Still, he can't bring himself to tell Dean the truth, can't make himself say those words— He knows that, at the heart of the matter, it's his own selfishness. He doesn't deserve this, but he wants for it desperately, wants to drag it out to the very last second. He can't tell Dean, because then Dean will try to stop him, and Castiel is only confident in his resolve up to a certain point.

“Hell, we can do anything we want. We can have our own spring break, drive to Cancún, drink all the bars out of business.” He gets more animated the longer he talks about it, even when Castiel wants to point out that he'd likely succumb to alcohol poisoning, first. “It always looks awesome in the movies. The world is your oyster, that sorta thing.”

It sounds nice, maybe. “What exactly does that have in common with a mollusc?”

“Not the point, Cas.”

Dean looks hard, and it's like he's trying to pick Castiel apart. Castiel finds that he can't hold it, and so he's the first to look away. He doesn't see it, but they're sitting so close that he feels the way Dean deflates.

“... Anyway, pie. You can shove all that angel crap about not needing to eat, because you and I are gonna sit down and eat one of every flavor until we vomit. Or I vomit.” It sounds much less pleasant, but he seems determined. “You hear me?”

Just a little longer. Castiel breathes out slowly.

“Yes, Dean... I hear you.”

He always does.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing again in two years, and my first time writing for this particular series ever, so this might not be my best work. (I was, and still am, pretty unsure how to portray a character like Castiel in a way that gets across the feeling I want for him.) It kind of dragged on for a bit longer than I intended it to, so I apologize for that... but I've been picking at this story all week between work, and am finally ready to call it done. If just one person reads and enjoys, then I'll count it as victory.


End file.
